My current favorite Rappler story has to do with a reporter from the outfit who sought an interview right after the elections with a Filipino-Chinese trader with excellent ties to the Fil-Chi business groups.

The reporter minced no words: Who gave Duterte money? What did he promise these funders? He can't have won without Fil-Chi money, right?

Told that Duterte didn't get any funding from the ethnic Chinese traders, the reporter was insistent. There must be "chismis" going around that you're not telling me, she said. I want to get the dirt on Duterte's funders. You can talk to me off the record, she promised.

The businessman was scandalized. What kind of story was this woman writing and why was she insisting that I make something out of nothing, he asked himself.

The story, because it was premised on prefabricated, patently false assumptions, never came out. But you get the idea, dear readers, of how Rappler assigns its stories.